A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
University of Pennsylvania Martin Seligman has been raising the profile of positive psychology over the past two decades. Seligman's notion of good mental health boils down to five key domains that together form the acronym PERMA: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and purpose, and accomplishments. This list includes the five PERMA attributes, as [...]
flickr One of the most exciting research findings from positive psychology is the amazing wellbeing boosts that can be achieved when we harness our own strengths, and the strengths of our children or students. It seems that when we know what our strengths are - or when our children and students can identify [...]
Families - 2014 IStockphoto Often when young people are experiencing difficult times in their lives they cannot believe that good times will come again. They often forget that they have even had some good times in the past. Adults working with young people need to share some of their own life stories to illustrate that [...]
Positive Psychology has become the ‘buzz’ trend among educators and others who work with children. Living our best life, and helping our youth to find greater joy, purpose, contribution and meaning does sound appealing. But is positive psychology all it’s cracked up to be? Is the evidence base solid enough for us to change entire school wellbeing [...]
Frayed emotions? A new book argues "distress tolerance" is what sets successful people apart. Photo: Canberra Times I live by a motto that what doesn't kill you hardens you, turning you brittle and bitter or breaks you open, softening you and creating resilience and strength. Interestingly, this idea of having emotional space to [...]
The flipside of the placebo effect, the nocebo effect is where we experience negative symptoms because we expect them. Our minds are more powerful than most of us realise. The placebo effect accounts for as much as one third of symptom relief in sick people, according to the American Cancer Society. When we believe we will [...]
Living your life with a strong sense of purpose may lower your risk for early death, heart attack or stroke, new research suggests. The finding is based on a broad review of past research involving more than 137,000 people in all. "Psychosocial conditions such as depression, anxiety, chronic stress and social isolation have strong associations [...]
Many Americans think happiness is the end game, the ultimate reason we’re alive, Kashdan said. In fact, 80 to 90 percent of people across the world say their fundamental objective is to be happy. But, happiness may be something we give too much credence too - Stephanie Castillo via Positive Psychology Prematurely Discards Negative Emotions; Why [...]
Despite heavily-marketed claims to the contrary, positive psychology interventions do not consistently improve mental or physical health and well-being. The myth that these interventions are efficacious is perpetuated by a mutually-admiring, self-promotional collective that protects its claims from independent peer review and scrutiny. As with the positive psychology intervention literature, it is a quick leap [...]
A lot is known about depression. We now know that there is particular neurological pattern that emerges in the brain of a depressed person. We also know that there are specific ways depressed people think — and don’t think. And we also know that there are specific behaviors that accompany depression. Yet for all we [...]
